President-elect Donald Trump tapped Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida, as his new choice to lead the Justice Department on Thursday. The decision came just hours after former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R), a fellow Floridian, withdrew his name from consideration amid a growing scandal over an ethics investigation into claims of sexual misconduct and drug use.
Here are five things to know about Bondi, a close ally of the Trump family:
Bondi was Florida’s first female attorney general.
Bondi became Florida’s first female attorney general in 2010 after she was endorsed by then-Republican superstar Sarah Palin. Unlike Gaetz, she had a long career as a prosecutor before she took on the state’s top law enforcement role. She spent 18 years at the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office.
During her tenure at Florida’s attorney general, she waged failed attempts to overturn the Affordable Care Act and attempted to keep Florida’s ban on gay marriage in place while pledging she was a friend to the LGBTQ community.
She also sparked massive criticism after her office delayed an execution so she could attend a fundraiser for herself. She later apologized.
She served from 2011 to 2019.
Photo by Loren Elliott/Tampa Bay Times/Getty Images
She declined to join an investigation into Trump University.
Bondi drew fierce criticism after it was revealed she asked Trump for a political contribution in 2013, around the same time the Florida attorney general’s office was considering joining an investigation on allegations of fraud at Trump University.
Trump wrote a $25,000 check to a political committee supporting Bondi days later, but the money came from a family foundation in violation of federal laws. Both Bondi and Trump denied the payment was a quid pro quo after details of the donation were made public in 2016.
Bondi never joined the investigation into Trump University, which was shuttered after a massive fraud probe. He later paid $25 million to settle three lawsuits related to the enterprise.
She was a lobbyist for Qatar and other clients in the U.S.
Bondi worked as a lobbyist for the firm Ballard Partners, the same business in Florida where Trump’s newly-minted chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was a partner. She joined in 2019 after finishing her second term as Florida’s attorney general.
Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Bondi’s clients included U.S. companies like General Motors, Uber and Amazon. But she also worked for the Qatari government and a Kuwaiti firm. Her work for Qatar included anti-human-trafficking efforts in the lead up to the World Cup held in the country in 2022, per The Associated Press.
She defended Kyle Rittenhouse as a “little boy” who wanted to protect his community.
Bondi quickly jumped to the defense of then-teenager Kyle Rittenhouse after he shot and killed two people and injured another at a racial justice protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020.
“People have to understand out there, that was a war zone. You have got a 17-year-old out there trying to protect his state,” Bondi told Fox News host Sean Hannity in Sept. 2020, shortly after Rittenhouse was charged with first-degree intentional homicide and first-degree reckless homicide.
“There were bullets flying everywhere. Other people were firing, This kid was trying to help people. Were there people killed? Absolutely. You’ve got a little boy out there trying to protect his community.”
She went on to say Rittenhouse shouldn’t have been there with a gun, but she believed at the time it was too early to charge him with any crimes. He was later acquitted on all charges in 2021.
She’s a fierce ally of Donald Trump and helped push his claims of election fraud in 2020. She also defended him during his first impeachment trial.
Bondi has long been a fierce ally of the former president after endorsing him in 2016 during his first bid for the White House, over fellow Floridian Sen. Marco Rubio (R).
In 2020 she was part of Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment trial, where he was accused of pressuring the president of Ukraine to dig up dirt on his Democratic rivals. Trump was impeached by the House but later acquitted by the Senate.
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Later in 2020, as Trump was pushing rampant lies about electoral fraud following his loss to Joe Biden, Bondi told a Fox News host that there were “fake ballots” coming into voting centers that were shining the election in Biden’s favor.
When the host asked her to provide evidence, she couldn’t.
Bondi has since served as the chairwoman of the pro-Trump think tank the America First Policy Institute and railed against the swath of investigations into his acts during his first term and into his business practices.